


The Last Airbenders

by Feneris



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Culture, End of the war, Gen, Mentions of genocide, Not Legend of Korra Compliant, Surviving Airbenders, Surviving Genocide, cultural trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feneris/pseuds/Feneris
Summary: The Fire Nation didn’t kill all the Air Nomads. They tried. They very nearly succeeded. But the Air Nomads have always been a mobile and scattered people. The temples may have been destroyed, but the Air Nomads lived on, hidden wherever they could find shelter. It wasn’t easy. There was many things they had to sacrifice in the name of staying hidden.But other things they were able to keep safe. Despite the Fire Nations best efforts, they were not destroyed. Now after 100 years, the War is over, and the Avatar sets out to find the last of his people.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 256
Collections: A:tla





	The Last Airbenders

**Author's Note:**

> Well the sudden revival of the Avatar fandom after over a decade has been a nice surprise for me. A lot of old ideas are returning, but now with an archeology degree and a lot of growing up, they’re better developed and finally ready to be written. (Now I can get to work on my take on the Teashop AU)
> 
> Mostly inspiration for this came from my desire to see more of Air Nomad culture and the hope that Aang wasn’t really the last Air Bender. While I can see why the shows writers wanted to emphasize the magnitude of the Air Nomad Genocide, there’s also a lot of reasons why the Fire Nation wouldn’t have been able to get all of them. There’s also a lot of cultures that have survived very determined attempts to wipe them out, and while it leaves a deep mark, they continue on and recover. Not the same, but still there. 
> 
> Honestly I don’t feel like I did this the justice it deserved, but I figured I might as well put it out there. Hope you enjoy.

The gilimontauks and racoongulls nest high on the cliffs. High enough that the wolverinesnakes cannot get to them, and out of the reach of waves thrown against the cliff-face by the sea or a curious killer whalewolf. But Yuruk can fly too, and they are not safe from him. The winds hit the face of the cliff and rise, so it’s easy for him to catch the updraft with his glider and let it carry him up the cliff face to where the birds nest. He has to be careful that he’s not dashed against the stones, but that’s why he has airbending.

The birds make a racket as he leaps onto the face of the cliff and makes his way to the first nest. They don’t like him being here, but there’s nothing they can do about it as he sends a blast of air towards the parent birds to drive them off and begins plucking the eggs out of the nest. 

The old Air Nomads were vegetarians, at least according to the elders. They never killed anything, not even fish, and they certainly didn’t steal eggs from mother birds. Yuruk isn’t sure he believes that. How would they have been able to survive in the winter when there’s no plants and everything is covered in ice? If they didn’t fish the ocean, hunt animals from above, or take eggs from the birds there’s nothing to eat. But the elders also say the Air Nomads didn’t use to live in the sea-caves of the south pole. They also say that the world is bigger than this, that there are many lands out there. Warmer lands. Lands that never see snow or ice ever. 

Yuruk isn’t sure he believes those stories either, but he wants to find out. The desire to find out thrums in his bones and with every breath, but the elders say he can’t leave here. No one can leave here. If they do, the Fire Nation will find them and kill everyone. He’s never seen a Fire Nation before, but he has seen the Water Tribes out in their kayaks, hunting seals and walruswhales. 

A secret isn’t a secret if you tell someone, the elders say. If they tell the Water Tribes they are here, then the Water Tribes might tell the Fire Nation, and then the Fire Nation will find them and kill everyone. So they stay away from the Water Tribes. It's not hard. The Water Tribes rarely come this close to the cliffs, especially not since the Fire Nation killed all their waterbenders. The sea is too rough and the currents are too strong.

But not for them. They can airbend. They can fly. It doesn’t matter how rough the sea is when the winds are strong and steady. And he can leap across the cliff-face from toe-hold to toe-hold without fearing that he will fall. The birds are in a frenzy as he makes it to the last nest. Their cries fill the air with deafening noise.

He almost doesn’t hear the warning whistle. Almost.

Hanna is on lookout duty. It's her job to hide in the clouds with her glider and keep an eye out for anyone approaching. The warning whistle tells everyone that someone is approaching and they need to hide. Yuruk is already flying back to the caves on his glider before the echoes of the whistle have even faded from his ears. As he scans the horizon he expects to see a kayak or canoe filled with Water Tribes. He fears he will see the giant metal ships spitting out black smoke the elders warn everyone about. 

But there is nothing on the horizon. No kayaks, no canoes, no boats, no ships. It's not until he looks up, wondering if this had been a false alarm, that he sees it. It’s flying through the air, but it’s not a bird. It doesn’t have wings. He’s never seen anything like it before. 

Then he realized he has. The elders tell stories about sky bison. He’s even seen pictures of them in scrolls. Air nomads used to ride sky bison, the elders say. They used to make butter and cheese out of their milk. But there’s not enough grass here for them to graze. Not all year. Not during the winter when everything is covered in snow. So they let their sky bison go and never saw them again. 

There are people riding it too. Two of them are Water Tribe. He can tell by their dark skin and blue clothes. But the person holding the reins is different. They’re dressed in orange and yellows, just like Yuruk is. Their head is shaven clean, and he can see a blue arrow running across the top of their skull. Just like all the elders have. 

The elders tell stories of the Avatar, how they will defeat the Fire Nation and restore balance to the world. Yuruk had seen the beam of light that day. Everyone had. No one had known what to make of it at the time but if this really is the Avatar… 

Maybe they don’t have to fear the Fire Nation anymore. Maybe he can leave and see the lands that never know snow. Suddenly, it’s not fear that drives him to push his glider faster towards the caves.

—

At first Suki doesn’t understand why Aang would get so excited about cheese. Let alone cheese that smells like the putrid carcass of a walruswhale left to rot under a hot sun. (A memory she is still trying to forget.)

Then Aang had explained. It was Air Nomad cheese, made of sky bison milk and left to age in caves until it had achieved just the right flavor. (And a smell that could attract coyotecrows from fifty miles away.) The cheese merchant who was selling the cheese said it came from a village high up in the nearby mountains.

Maybe they’ll find air nomads up there, maybe they won’t. Either way, it’s worth checking out. A normal person would have had to brave the narrow and winding trail up into the mountains, but Aang has Appa and so where others have to hike, he can just fly. It’s a good thing too. The trail can barely be called a trail. From Appa’s back she can trace the tiny ribbon of dirt as it twists up the side of the valley. Sometimes it skirts so close to cliff-edges that it's practically falling off. Sometimes it does fall off, with only a series of pegs pounded into the cliffside to allow passage. There’s not so much as a bridge, just a length of rope across one gorge. 

It would be nearly impossible to march an army up that treacherous path. Even a lone traveler wouldn’t attempt such a route without a good reason. An airbender on the other hand… She can see Aang skipping carelessly across those narrow pegs and practically sliding across that rope over the gorge. 

Appa jerks suddenly in the sky. Down below Suki can see someone sprinting across the rocks with amazing speed and grace. A lookout obviously. Someone picked watch the trail for anyone approaching the village. Someone with a bison whistle maybe, to sound an alarm without alerting the visitors to your presence.

The village comes into view as they clear the last ridge. It’s ordinary. Disappointingly ordinary. Wooden houses with thatched roofs, painted earth-kingdom green. Just like thousands of other tiny villages all over the Earth Kingdom. Vegetable gardens and pasture surrounded it on all sides.

Except that the pastures are neatly clipped in a way that suggests animals have recently grazed them. Yet there are no livestock to be seen. 

Suki has a pretty good hunch as to what they would find if they went to those caves up on the nearby cliff face.

Appa lands just outside the village, and Suki can see a group of people come towards them as they dismount. There’s five of them, three women and two men. They look exactly like the Earth Kingdom peasants you’d expect to find in a mountain village like this. Simple clothes of green and brown, rough herders sticks in their hands, and full heads of hair that show no sign of blue arrow tattoos.

But they don’t walk like earth peasants. There’s a lightness to their steps, not the sure-footed heavy trod so common in the Earth Kingdom. 

One of the women, probably the headwoman of the village, steps forward. She’s not looking at Aang, so much as at his arrow tattoos and orange and yellow clothes. 

“You are Avatar Aang then?” She asked, hesitant and careful.

“I am,” Aang replied.

“Is it true then?” The Headwoman asked. “The war is over?”

“It is,” Aang confirms. “Zuko is the Firelord now. He’s signed a ceasefire with the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes while they negotiate peace. He’s also decreed that all persecution of the Air Nomads shall immediately cease. The war is over.”

The woman suddenly let out a loud cheer and sprung forward, sweeping Aang up into a hug. Great gusts of air blew over the grass as she spun Aang around. “It's true! It’s true! It really is true! It’s not a rumour this time! The war is over! We can travel again!” The wind danced around her as she let go of Aang and spun to face the rest of the group. “Zyun! Get the beer! We’re celebrating! Tell Yun and Shen to turn their instruments, call the bison back from the caves!” She let out a great joyous laugh as the rest of the group ran off to get things ready. 

“How did you find this place?” Aang asked. “Everyone I met had no idea there might be airbenders up here.”

“This was an old stopover point for Air Nomads crossing the mountains,” the woman explained. “There’s good grazing, clean water from the stream, it’s not a bad place to settle. According to my mother, a lot of our people wound up here during the attack. Some continued on deeper into the Earth Kingdom, but we decided to stay here and ride out the war. It hasn’t been easy, but we made it work. It seemed like every time we’d venture into town there’d be some new rumour that the war was going to be over soon, but it never was.” A wide delirious grin started splitting her face. “But now it is.” 

Out in the distance, Suki can see white shapes floating out of the cliffside caves. There’s a familiar whiff of cheese in the air, that even now still burns her nose. Back in the village she can hear a rising cheer as the good news is spread. The best news these people have probably heard in a hundred years.

—

Fire and air used to be great friends. Firebending came from the breath. Fire could not survive without air. It was something the people of Kyruk Island knew well. With their proximity to the Western Air Temple, there had been a long history of trade and friendship between the island and the nomads. The people of Kyruk were Fire Nation through and through, but to them the Air Nomads weren’t just wandering vagabonds but aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and old friends.

Zhong had been only six when the woman he called Auntie had landed her sky bison in his family’s courtyard in the middle of the night. Her hands had been shaking, her voice tinged with hysteria, even her sky bison had a patch where its fur had been burned. The children she had brought with her had been much the same. 

The Fire Army had attacked the Western Air Temple, she had said. They were killing everyone. 

Zhong hadn’t believed it. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. It sounded too horrifying to possibly be true. Try as he might, his child mind hadn’t been able to wrap its mind around the idea that the nation he had been brought up to love could do something so evil. But more nomads kept arriving throughout the night, each one with the same story. North, east, west, and south, the Fire Army had arrived and killed everyone they could. 

Even now, when he has just passed his 106th birthday and has lived through 100 years of war, he still has difficulty comprehending how anyone could do something so horrific.

The next morning, when the messenger had come with the decree that all airbenders in the Fire Nation were to be executed, the village knew what they had to do. They had flown the bison up to the smoking caldera in the center of the island and hidden them in the lava tunnels there. They found families willing to take in the orphaned children, and found people in the village willing to pretend various nomads were part of their family. (Oftentimes it wasn’t even a pretense.) The nomads had put on red clothes, covered tattoos with hats, gloves and makeup, then the village had gathered up any sign of air nomad culture, yellow clothes, gliders, bison whistles, and burned them all in a bonfire. Anything that might hint that there were airbenders hiding amongst them was destroyed. 

They then removed their ancestors from their family shrines, and poured the ashes and burned bones into baskets. One for every air nomad hiding among them. Zhong had watched in disbelief as his father, a man who had prided himself on his honesty, had presented these remains to Firelord Sozin and lied. He told the Firelord that the air nomads had indeed fled to Kryuk Island, and that they, being loyal subjects of the Firelord, had killed them all and thrown their savage tools and idols on a bonfire and here was the proof of the deed. 

And the Firelord had believed them. Had congratulated them on their loyalty. As if murdering children and kin was something honorable. Zhong had felt sick, and on the boat home had asked his father why he had lied. 

“Truth is important,” his father had agreed. “But lives are more important than truth.” 

Zhong had never forgotten it. So he learned to lie as well. They all did. They learned to bite their tongue whenever someone mentioned the Air Army and the Air Assassins. They repeated the lies about the Air Nation and its treachery whenever they were prompted to.

Auntie had once told him that violence begets violence in an endless cycle of hurt and pain. He wondered sometimes if that was true with lies as well. The Firelord lied to them, and they lied to him in turn. The lies kept flowing, around and around like an eddie. Lives were more important than truth, Zhong kept reminding himself, and it was true. 

If the Firelord ever found out that the people of Kyruk were hiding airbenders amongst them then he would kill them all, fire and air alike. 

He learned to fear as well. They all did. You got used to it. The constant fear that one of your neighbours might betray you all, or that one of your children might say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Zhong had never felt such terror as when his middle son bent air during a family dinner. 

Children bending air instead of fire was common enough on Kyruk. But never before had it been something to fear. 

As his son practices with the other airbenders, and learns to hide his bending, Zhong lights a candle and prays to Agni for him. He prays for his oldest daughter when she leaves Kyruk to join the engineering corps. He prays for his nephew when he joins the army. He prays for his cousin when she moves to work in the capital. He prays for his grandson when he too begins to airbend. He prays for his granddaughter when she becomes a companion of Princess Azula. He lights hundred of candles and prays for everyone who carries Kyruk’s secret. 

Now he prays that Ty Lee has not brought death to their doorstep. 

The Firelord has never visited Kyruk Island. Never. Not once in all of Zhong’s 106 years. Until today that is. 

Zhong tries to calm his heart. Tries to tell himself that they’re all not going to be put to the flame. Firelord Zuko is different, everyone has said. But they had said the same thing about Azulon and Ozai as well. 

Still, no Firelord had ever visited Kyruk, or anywhere, from the back of a sky bison before. 

The entire town is gathered in the main square as the bison sets down. They all drop to their knees and bow as Firelord Zuko climbs down from the saddle, followed by Zhong’s granddaughter, and the Avatar himself. 

“We welcome you to Kyruk Island, Firelord Zuko,” Zhong intones the traditional words of welcome. “We are at your service.” At the signal from the Firelord, they all rise to their feet. Zhong’s knees ache. A reminder of why he has passed off his duties in the capital to his son. “What would you ask of us Firelord?”

There’s a twitch in the Firelord’s lips. Several of them. Like he wants to say something, but can’t find the right way to say it. It makes Zhong realize just how young this new Firelord is. He’s barely of age to marry, let alone lead an entire nation. Then his expression hardens.

“Is it true? That there are airbenders here?”

Everyone was expecting something like this. It does not stop the cold feeling of fear from washing down Zhong’s back, or the frightened gasp that comes from the crowd. 

Zhong has had nightmares about this exact scenario for a hundred years. A thousand lies fly through his head, followed by a dozen different frantic scenarios involving him pleading for the Firelord’s mercy in order to buy time for at least some people to escape. Then hope catches up to him.

This is not Sozin, or Azulon, or Ozai. This is the Firelord who finally ended the war. (And not with the complete incineration of all who opposed him.) This is the first Firelord to travel to Kyruk by sky bison, and who stands now with the Avatar beside him. An Avatar who is an Air Nomad. A real air nomad. Not the insulting caricatures he’s gotten so used to seeing. 

Besides, he’s had enough of lies. 

“There are,” he confirms. The tension is the town is practically crackling like a lightning storm. Their very lives hang on what happens next. They’re expecting rage, disappointment, maybe stoic acceptance. 

Not the Firelord to suddenly drop to his knees. 

“I am sorry,” Firelord Zuko’s words ring loud and clear through the sudden silence. “My ancestors committed a great crime against you.” 

The Firelord has never apologized for anything. Ever. Not once in all of Zhong’s 106 years. Not for the war and all the pain and death it caused. Not even for accidentally spilling tea on someone. 

No one says a word as the Firelord rises to his feet again. “Let it be known. All Air Nomads and airbenders are free to travel where they wish and practice their bending openly without fear of violence or arrest. If you wish to return to the temples, you may. If you require any help at all, ask and I will provide what I can.”

There they are. The words everyone had been longing for, but never thought they would ever hear. Everyone is too stunned to say anything. 

Then someone lets out a cheer. And just like that the floodgates are opened. The Firelord’s composure drops like a stone as the crowd surges forward around him with a great shout of happiness. One old woman with tears in her eyes even throws her arms around him in a hug. 

Zhong is not one of them. All he can do is plop down on a nearby bench as the weight of what has just happened crashes down on him.

It's over. It's finally over. No more lies. No more hiding what they are. His children, their children, and their children no longer need to fear if they bend air instead of fire. They can take the bison out of the caldera and let them graze out in the open away from the gases that spill from the vents. They can have smokebending at the New Year's festival. 

That revelation almost knocks him over. They haven’t had smokebending since he was a boy. He had thought he would die without ever seeing it again. 

Beside him, his great-granddaughter leaps up and down in excitement, kicking herself higher into the air with a gust of wind. “We can airbend!” She cheers. “The Firelord said so!”

“Yes,” Zhong agrees. “Yes he did.”


End file.
